A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World

Author: Gregory Clark

Princeton University Press, 2007

Gregory Clark is chairman of the economics department at
the University of California, Davis.

Clark describes economic development from the "original
foragers of the African savannah" to the nineteenth century
passing through gains in production of food, better tools
and more land to cultivate. These gains, he holds, were
always offset by rises in population, what he calls the
Malthusian Trap.

Among the figures and charts he uses to support his point,
he cites 15 pounds of wheat as equivalent to
a day's wage in ancient Babylon and from 11 to 13
pounds of wheat in the year 1800 in England. And he describes
stature (a function of diet) as somewhat the same across
this same span of time.

Clark writes that between 1760 and 1900 an unprecedented
event occurred,
"made possible by advances in knowledge." This event
was a "rapid industrial growth fueled by increasing production
efficiency," called the Industrial Revolution. He describes
the Industrial Revolution as coming first to England,
between 1760 and 1800. It can be argued, writes Clark, that
the break from the Malthusian Trap occurred around the
year 1600, 1800 or 1860.

More than just describing that this happened, Clark attempts
to explain why it happened first in England, and for his
last chapter he asks "Why
Isn't the Whole World Developed?"

For me his questions bring to mind the American Indians
and their part in the world's uneven economic development
from many centuries ago. Indians
in North America did partake in innovations when circumstances
were right. They took to horses when horses became available.
Some of them farmed. They did not invent guns
because they were without the tools needed
to imagine the possibility. They had no machine or metals
industry, and, like Europeans before the Middle Ages,
no knowledge about gunpowder. Like most Europeans, rather
than invent guns they were ready to use them when they
became available. To the extent that they were not in want,
they saw no reason to invent something new. They were not
imbued with the spirit of industrialists, wanting something
new for the sake of profit, mass marketing or beating
out competition. It is absurd to claim that they were genetically inferior to the British.

The Industrial Revolution was the
result of a long social and economic development, and Clark
recognizes this. He describes the Industrial Revolution
as the result of an irregular fluctuation from as far back
as the year 1200. He describes the ancient Romans as not
having advanced technologically, as not even having stirrups.
They rode horses as did American Indians,
by holding on with their knees.

Concerning inventions, in writing about developments during
the Industrial Revolution, he mentions in passing that
it is easier to copy than it is to invent, and he notes
that inventions exist within
the context of broad social and economic development.

Clark tries to explain the rise of the Industrial Revolution
in England as something other than the English burning
up all their wood and being forced to turn to coal, or
a rising population of common people in want
of employment in order to survive matched by entrepreneurs
who needed them in their factories.
Clark mentions interest rates, Protestantism, the nearness
of coal and other matters. He mentions Adam Smith's observation
of pre-industrial institutions offering poor incentives.
It is not easy to accuse Clark of having excluded anything
that contributed to the coming of the Industrial Revolution
to England, but Clark tries to point out what was crucial,
or causal, in making the Industrial Revolution
happen first in England.

Clark writes that, between the
years 1200 and 1800, wealthier people in England had more
than twice the number of surviving children than the poor,
or common people. Clark
describes pre-industrial England as a "world of constant
downward mobility, the sons of large landholders
becoming small holders, the sons of successful craftsmen
of one generation becoming the laborers of the next
generation, the sons of merchants becoming petty traders
and so on." It was
a trend, he points out, that was opposite to what happened
after the Industrial Revolution, when wealthy people had
fewer children and among the poor were the upwardly mobile.
Clark describes the downward mobility before the Industrial
Revolution as spreading middle class values downward,
values necessary to make the Industrial Revolution happen.
He describes these values as thrift,
prudence, negation, hard work, literacy
and numeracy (math). These, he writes, replaced "spendthrift,
impulsive, violence and leisure loving."

In trying to explain why the Industrial Revolution did not
appear first in China or Japan, Clark describes a larger
population growth in the centuries before 1800
and less reproductive advantage to the wealthy than was happening
in England. "Thus
we may speculate," he writes, "that England's advantage
lay in the rapid cultural, and potentially also genetic,
diffusion of the values of the economically successful
throughout society in the years 1200-1800." The scholar
that he is, Gregory Clark knows when he is speculating
and when he is not.

Let us wonder how it is that the Finns, who got a late start in industrialization – after World War II – and have now (2011) surpassed the British economically, not because of superior natural resources, I presume. I have difficulty with any notion of innate superiority as a result of reproduction dynamics.

In answering his question why the whole world isn't developed
Clark states that "poor
economies since the Industrial Revolution have been characterized
mainly by inefficiency in production." The dynamics of
the world economy since modern colonialism and the beginning
of the industrial revolution have
been much discussed. Clark speaks of
better managers creating more efficient production. But
he avoids a broader narrative succinctly expressed that
provides a guide as
to what policies could remedy poverty. The title of his
book, however, suggests that "alms" from the richer
nations is not a remedy, and his discussion of the Malthusian
Trap suggests that nations not well developed economically
should concern themselves with agricultural development
and limiting population growth.